文档介绍：毕业论文外文翻译
Rural Industry Clusters Raise Local Earnings
Industry clusters have e a popular strategy for rural economic development, yet their benefits to the local areas have not been fully examined. Labor is expected to be more productive within clusters, which should translate into higher wages. Our analysis confirms this, showing that workers’ earnings in rural industry clusters are about 13 percent higher than those parable workers outside clusters. The wage boost is similar for workers regardless of age or education level.
The poor performance of the rural economy in the 1980’s led economic development experts to search for new ways to stimulate local growth. One promising avenue for development was to encourage the location and expansion of business establishments that are linked by their interdependence as customer and supplier, or by their use mon local resources. Such spatial concentrations of activity, or industry clusters, were expected to raise productivity for all establishments in the cluster, thus encouraging other firms to locate there, and raising local e.
The idea that spatial clustering can raise the productivity of establishments is hardly new, having its antecedents in economic writings over a century ago. Not surprisingly, clusters have traditionally been equated with cities, as cities are by nature relatively large clusters of economic activity. Yet clusters can also benefit rural economies. Although prospects for the rural economy as a whole have improved significantly since the 1980’s, competition for new firms among many local areas remains keen. The industry cluster appears to be a ponent in the development specialist’s arsenal.
Some of the local area benefits from industry clusters have been measured, but the potential effect of raising workers’ earnings has gone relatively unexamined. In this article, we report findings from an analysis of manufacturing establishments showing that workers in rural industry clusters earn about 13 pe